The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), directed by Luis Buñuel, is a surrealist comedy that dismantles the conventions of social etiquette and bourgeois respectability through a series of bizarre, dreamlike vignettes. The film centers on a group of six affluent friends—three men and three women—who continually attempt to have a formal dinner together, but their plans are absurdly and repeatedly interrupted by increasingly strange and illogical events.
These interruptions range from the mildly inconvenient to the outright surreal: a restaurant running out of food, a colonel telling a ghost story mid-meal, military invasions, and even theatrical performances the characters don’t realize they’re part of. Each time, the group’s desire to maintain their social rituals—eating, drinking, conversing politely—is thwarted by something just out of the realm of the ordinary. The repetition becomes a thematic anchor, emphasizing their inability to ever truly connect or complete their social functions.
Buñuel, a master of surrealism, uses dream sequences, non-linear storytelling, and sudden tonal shifts to blur the lines between reality and illusion. The characters never react with genuine shock, even as events grow stranger. Their calm acceptance of the irrational underscores Buñuel’s satirical critique: the bourgeois class clings to appearances and decorum even when reality unravels around them.
The film is not concerned with plot resolution but rather with sustained thematic critique. Buñuel targets hypocrisy, repression, and the emptiness of upper-class rituals. The recurring image of the characters walking endlessly down a country road reinforces their aimless journey and existential stagnation.
Winner of the 1973 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie remains a biting, imaginative, and darkly comic exploration of class, power, and absurdity, with Buñuel’s signature blend of wit, irony, and surrealist defiance against narrative convention.
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